When we hosted Thanksgiving this year, we had to add a second table.
It was the first time we had to do that at our house. In years past, when our older kids were little, we almost always went to my sister-in-law’s house. Then, after the disruptions of COVID-19, my sister- and brother-in-law moving into a smaller home, and all of our children (now mostly adults) getting older, it just made sense.
But this year, instead of having just the five of us and maybe a boyfriend or girlfriend, we had us, our oldest’s boyfriend and his family, plus friends of my middle child, to make 11 for dinner. Then my sister-in-law and her husband, as well as one of my nephews and his wife, joined us for dessert.
It was … well, it was a lot of work. It was baking and cooking and cleaning before people got there, setting tables and cooking and serving and cleaning up when they were there, and more cleaning up after. It was carrying chairs and seldom-used cooking equipment up from the basement and back down again, washing mixing bowls so they could immediately be used for something else, and finding a replacement for the turkey platter that cracked in half just before we served dinner.
But it was also fun to make something, and to watch people enjoy it. It was fun to incorporate what other people made or brought — my kids, ages 27, 25 and 15, all made something to serve — and it was fun to get to know our guests a bit better, especially those whom we didn’t know well.
I was thankful for their presence, for the new perspectives they brought to our conversation and the new ears they brought for listening to family stories. Our holiday was enriched by their presence.
Making room at the table, or even setting an adjacent table, was and is the right call, especially on a holiday devoted to giving thanks for the abundance that we have received.
Now, of course, we pivot from Thanksgiving to Advent and then on to Christmas, which both are about making room.
It’s not necessarily about making room at our tables and in our living rooms, around our Christmas trees, or even making room in our budgets to help provide gifts for families who can’t afford them, although those are wonderful things to do.
It’s about making room in your mind for new ways of thinking, in your heart for new ways of feeling, in your life for new ways of doing, for welcoming the Christ child not only as the figurine in your Nativity set, but in every person you meet.
Making room, just like setting an extra table at Thanksgiving, requires making an effort. The effort is moving furniture around, of course, but it’s also in accepting new foods on the table, new topics of conversation, new experiences to learn about.
It’s easy to keep on the way we always have, to follow our traditions because it’s what we’ve always done. That’s good, of course, but at the same time, we are enriched by accommodating the change that Jesus brings to the world.